Friday, October 24, 2008

Friendship

Besides youself, work, family and your true love, friends probably comes next. The thing is they come and go, and we are probably the one who let this happen. I mean we didn’t stop them from leaving, and slowly we forgot about them. We remember they are good friends, yet it seems so far apart.

It is easy to maintain a friendship when we are always around each other, such as studying in the same school, working in the same place and joining the same activities. The friendship might build up for a few years and gave us many happy moments, until we moved on: either graduated, migrated, change job, retire or etc. Since we have less time together, the friendship sort of faded of. It’s still there, just that it is no longer that close; we are occupied with other things such as new job, new friends, new hobby and etc. We could try to salvage that, by messaging or come out sometimes for some activities, but that rarely happens.

When we want something bad enough, there is nothing which could stop us. Yet, we as human might become lazy and complacent, or had put our priority elsewhere, until one day we realize what we are missing. I probably had missed all my friend’s birthday, if someone or something haven’t reminded me; I had only remembered a few person’s birthday since young, and that is pathetic and a bad excuse for myself.

Though I can change everything overnight, but everything starts with a one small baby step. I think birthday is good thing to remember, and getting in touch with old friends once a year is pretty reasonable and feels good (we need an excuse to meet up anyway). To overcome my brain’s “defect” to remember birthday, I shall rely on Google Calendar to give me both email and SMS reminder. All I need to do is to scout around for their birthday, and I will never forget them again, muahahaha! It’s a bit of cheating, but technology should be used to improve our social life. Either a text, or a lunch/dinner, or a present, is better than forgetting all about it.

I know there is no easy way to maintain a friendship forever, but I guess we just have to try and remind us about it. Sometimes I think about my own life so much, perhaps its part of my life as well to think about others.